not tonight, kid
by psychicchameleon
Summary: "And while Tony was certain Peter's name wouldn't be written in the obituaries tomorrow—he wouldn't let that happen—he was terrified that something inside of Peter had finally given in." Tony has to talk Peter off of a ledge. Post Homecoming, pre Infinity War.


**an: first and foremost—TW for mentions of suicide. Please be safe. And this is just a horribly angsty fic because I think that Peter hides a lot, and this is just me trying to write about all those suppressed emotions coming to a head. No one edits these and I write them in one sitting, so apologies in advance for grammar/typos/etc.**

"Kid, I'm going to need you to listen to me—just this once—and I promise I'll let you eat whatever you want for the rest of your long, long life," Tony starts, his attempt at being calm becoming less and less convincing with every passing second, "but I need you to step away from that ledge."

"I just wanted to help, Mr. Stark. I just—I didn't want anybody to get hurt," Peter stammers, a dark blue jacket and jeans fluttering in the wind while his face—his horribly pallid face—was left exposed to the night air.

The kid's innocence had worn off steadily throughout the past few years. Oh, he still had a heart of gold and manners fit for the Queen of England herself, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who still didn't see eighteen-year-old Peter Parker as the living embodiment of an actual fucking ray of sunshine. This kid, despite losing nearly everything he ever loved, never ceased to be the count-your-blessings-glass-half-full kind of person. He had a personality that could make a ruthless assassin want to find God and a smile and that all-but-singlehandedly reunited (and saved) the Avengers.

Tony knew better. He knew that several times a month Peter retreated to a soundproof room in the basement of the Avengers Facility and buried himself in a pillow, only to return hours later with blood in his ears and looking like he had seen a ghost. He knew that Peter went home every night and held his eyes shut until the sounds of Ben's cries were drowned out by sleep. He knew that, tucked into the back of his closet, was the small black suit and the shoes he had worn to his parents' funeral, still caked with the same dirt that he watched the groundskeepers cover his parents' graves with, long after everyone else had left.

Tony knew a thing or two about emotional baggage—about carrying around the loss of people you love for far longer than is expected of most people. He also knew that Peter would grin and bear it for as long as he lived, hiding behind the Spider-Man mask by night and behind his own bubbly façade during the day.

He took the worst things that life could throw at him and turned them into strength and resilience and unrestrained compassion. It was for this reason that Spider-Man had been parading around a children's hospital that morning. The visit was part of a charity event to raise money for and put smiles on the faces of terminally ill children, and Peter had been looking forward to it visit for weeks with an excitement that was palpable. Tony had gone as himself, giving the kid some moral support and hiding his own smile as Peter displayed his webbing abilities for the children, a grin no doubt spread across his face under the mask.

And then everything had gone wrong.

The Daily Bugle headline for the evening had read ' _Spider-Man: Don't our children deserve better?'_ A maniac had heard about the hospital visit. An explosion destroyed an entire wing of a hospital. Sixteen people were dead in a little less than a second, before Peter or Tony could even blink. Eleven of them were children. There was nothing Spider-Man could do but watch in horror.

"Peter, it's not your fault. Those people—those kids, there was nothing we could do."

Tony was in his suit, poised to catch the boy if the unthinkable were to happen. They were sixteen stories up, one for each of the victims that Peter hadn't been able to save. Rhodey was suited up, prepared to catch him if Tony didn't. No one was going to be scraping Peter Parker off of the sidewalk tonight.

Peter's hands were trembling at his sides, no, his whole body was trembling. His eyes were wide-open, locked onto the streets below, and he was wheezing and hiccupping, snot dripping down his nose and tears pooling in his eyes. He looked like a wisp of himself out there—a broken, fleeting wisp of the boy Tony knew and loved.

Peter lacked the physical energy to fight anymore. At some point, even Atlas buckles under the weight of the world. And while Tony was certain Peter's name wouldn't be written in the obituaries tomorrow—he wouldn't let that happen—he was terrified that something inside of Peter had finally given in. It didn't matter if Tony or Rhodes snatched him out of the air or not, if Peter jumped, a part of him had already died.

"Pete, look at me, please." His impossibly wide eyes were still vacant and frozen, but they managed to train on Tony.

"I've been here, at the end of my rope, when it was too much; that helplessness, that agonizing absence of control. Because you're a superhero, right," he chokes, "a card-carrying member of the 'earth's mightiest heroes' club, but they don't tell you when you sign up how much it absolutely sucks. They don't sit you down and tell you that sometimes the bad guys win, and that most of the time, even when they don't win, the good guys lose. We lose and we lose and we lose over and over again."

"Death doesn't discriminate, Pete," the tears are streaming down his face now, "it takes and takes and takes and you know what the worst part is? We keep living. We live to fight another day and it just leaves room for more loss. I know what it feels like to just want to break that cycle, to jump and never feel the pain again."

Peter's eyes shift nervously to the bustling street hundreds of feet below him.

"Yea, yea," he whispers, "with great power comes great responsibility."

"Yea, kid. And I wish more than anything that you didn't have to bear that responsibility, but I know that someone, somewhere out there gave you these powers knowing that you could handle them—that you could use them to change the world. And as much as I want to kick that someone's ass for robbing you of your childhood and making this your life," he gestures to the trembling child, "we need you Peter."

"You've never had a selfish bone in that entire body of yours, it's infuriating, really," he chuckles drily, "and I know you didn't suddenly grow one tonight. Peter, think about May, she can't take another heartbreak. And Ned, and MJ; Peter those kids need you. And I've _always_ been selfish so Pete, _I_ need you," his voice is so thin now, but he desperately tries to keep his cool composure as Peter turns back to stare out into the night sky, tears precariously close to falling, his chest heaving in a way that made Tony's heart skip a beat.

"We can't always save everyone, but I'll be damned if we can't avenge them. So, please, Peter, come here."

It takes him a minute of staring at Tony, and the ground below, but he takes a step back and then two and three and in less than a moment he's in Tony's arms, tears leaving hot trails down his face. Tony stumbles out of the suit, taking the kid to ground with him, clutching him like he might disappear at any second.

"This world doesn't deserve you kid. I don't deserve you."

"Mr. Stark, I-I'm s-s-sorry," he sobs, gripping the man's shoulders and bleeding tears into the fabric of his expensive suit.

"Nope, no apologies, not tonight kid." Tony thinks back to one gruesome night, back when he was still a kid—just around Peter's age. Howard Stark had come in and seen the pills strewn everywhere, his son lying in a daze, eyes glossed over, clinging to life. He remembered the screaming, _Tony, Tony! How could you do this—how—how could you do this to us?_ And then it was a mess of hospital lights and a tube down his throat and he had pulled through, but Howard barely even looked at him for the next couple of weeks, and it just made him curse those damn pills for not taking him soon enough. He knew his father cared, that he was probably more scared that night than he'd ever admit, but that feeling of utter loneliness in the darkest moment of his life is something that Tony never wants Peter to feel.

So he just holds Peter, reaching a hand up to brush his hair back before resting his chin on the top of his head. His fingers toy with the navy material of Peter's sweater, needing to just _feel_ him, as he repeats, whispering into his hair, "not tonight kid."


End file.
